As long as you have the correct color temp light bulb, you have good light penetration to plants, on a long enough photoperiod and plant the plants properly....all should be fine...

Its better to remove the plants from the pots and remove any rockwool-don't worry about trimming or removing some of the roots along with the rockwool or pot...Then plant them in the substrate if they are substrate planted plants. With your stem plants-they can be planted at any dept and with the rosette type plants...like swords, sags, vals, crypts-make sure the crown is slightly above the substrate so they don't rot.

It can be overwhelming in the beginning....Take a deep breath-smile and have fun-trying not to worry too much and it will all come together in time....

It would depend on how deep the 30gal is....with 2 t8 15w in 30 gal would be limited even with good penetration, however, there are a lot of plants that would do fine-and a lot that will be leggy too and/or drop the lower leaves.

Crypts, some sags and vals are a great plants that do really well in deeper tanks will limited light penetration as long as the color temp is correct.

Naja grass would be a good stem plant-the hygrophilas would do well too, however, the wisteria might get a bit leggy and drop or yellow on the lower leaves-both the broad and thin leaf would get more woody stems and have limited lower leaves-
In my soil based all open top tanks that are over 2ft deep- all of my hygrophilas do fairly well with low to moderate light with watts in the 1-2wpg range and while watts are not that important- they do help to give a general guideline-Kelvin and light penetration is far more important IME in regards to plant growth and species that work best.
I think open tops help a lot too since that helps with penetration and not to forget about reflection/reflector that is really important-you gotta get that light into the tank....lol....

It would depend on how deep the 30gal is....with 2 t8 15w in 30 gal would be limited even with good penetration, however, there are a lot of plants that would do fine-and a lot that will be leggy too and/or drop the lower leaves.

Crypts, some sags and vals are a great plants that do really well in deeper tanks will limited light penetration as long as the color temp is correct.

Naja grass would be a good stem plant-the hygrophilas would do well too, however, the wisteria might get a bit leggy and drop or yellow on the lower leaves-both the broad and thin leaf would get more woody stems and have limited lower leaves-
In my soil based all open top tanks that are over 2ft deep- all of my hygrophilas do fairly well with low to moderate light with watts in the 1-2wpg range and while watts are not that important- they do help to give a general guideline-Kelvin and light penetration is far more important IME in regards to plant growth and species that work best.
I think open tops help a lot too since that helps with penetration and not to forget about reflection/reflector that is really important-you gotta get that light into the tank....lol....

Wow you are so off the cuff...huge respect for your knowledge, gonna take me two days to input that lol, by the way your tanks are something very special.

Wow, OFL no need for me to compile info from other sites anymore. Definitely know & completely understand what I did wrong with my plants in the past after reading your posts.

For the Verilux light tube it's rated @ 14,000 hours.
Running 10 hours on a automatic timer x 365 days = 3650 hours. If I replace the light in the canopy every 12 months, there's about 10,000 hours left before the fluorescent tube needs to be replaced.

$13 a year for a bulb that can sustain plants is pretty cheap.

I haven't used fertilizers yet, but I have strategically dropped bettapies around the roots/rhizome of the anubias and java ferns. Does that do anything?

All i have managed to find out about my lights is that they are T4 15watt flourescent bright day white bulbs which it seems will be the best i can get for my hood.

I think i should take the plant out as it looks very pathetic just stalks in the sand with a stray few soft decaying leaves.

Put the plant in a container of dechlorinated water in a sunny window and see if the natural light with bring it back to life.....It sounds like it was grown out of the water and the leaves are in transition and the roots might still be viable, however, if they didn't get the correct light that they can use they will die...kinda like being placed in the dark....

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